Back in January, Death Cab for Cutie announced that after 20 years and 6 albums on Atlantic Records, they’d returned to an independent, ANTI-. They’ve now announced their first album for their new label home, I Built You a Tower, due out on June 5. It was produced and engineered by John Congleton from three weeks’ worth of sessions, and guitarist and keyboardist Dave Depper says, “the anniversary tours exorcised any nostalgia in our systems. We felt part of this powerful force greater than all of us and went into the studio with a sense of, how can we capture that feeling and put it into something new?”
Bassist Nick Harmer continues, “The whole experience of this record got us back to the earliest versions of this band: If the musicians in the room like what we’re working on, that’s enough. We reconnected with the confidence that comes with that.”
We have an exclusive “clear purple” vinyl variant of I Built You a Tower, limited to 500 copies and available for pre-order in the BV shop.
They’ve shared the first single, “Riptides,” which Ben Gibbard says “is about the challenge of dealing with personal struggles as the world around us experiences tragedy and loss on an unfathomable scale. And how when these two elements intertwine themselves in our psyches, it feels utterly paralyzing.” Watch the video, directed by Jason Lester, below.
Death Cab will be on tour with Japanese Breakfast, Jay Som, Nation of Language and Lala Lala this summer, and they’ve added new fall shows in Europe. See all dates below.
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – I BUILT YOU A TOWER TRACKLIST
1. Full of Stars
2. Punching The Flowers
3. Pep Talk
4. I Built You A Tower (a)
5. Envy The Birds
6. Stone Over Water
7. How Heavenly a State
8. Trap Door
9. Riptides
10. The Flavor of Metal
11. I Built You A Tower (b)
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: 2026 TOUR DATES
May 29 – Denver, CO – Outside Days
July 10 – Minneapolis, MN – Armory *
July 11 – Milwaukee, WI – Miller High Life Theatre *
July 12 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park *
July 14 – Cincinnati, OH – MegaCorp Pavilion *
July 15 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavilion *
July 17 – Philadelphia, PA – Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts ^
July 18 – Canandaigua, NY – CMAC ^
July 19 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre ^
July 21 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ^
July 22 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek ^
July 24 – St. Louis, MO – Stifel Theatre #
July 25 – Bentonville, AR – The Momentary #
July 26 – Council Bluffs, IA – Harrah’s Stir Cove #
July 28 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 29 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 31 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre #
August 2 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 4 – San Diego, CA – Gallagher Square at Petco Park #
August 6 – Las Vegas, NV – The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas &
August 7 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre &
August 9 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands
September 16 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Olympia Theatre
September 19 – Manchester, UK – O2 Victoria Warehouse
September 20 – Edinburgh, UK – Corn Exchange
September 21 – Gateshead, UK – The Glasshouse
September 23 – Bristol, UK – The Prospect Building
September 25 – London, UK – Troxy
September 29 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg
September 30 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
October 1 – Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle
October 3 – Paris, France – Elysée Montmartre
* with Jay Som
^ with Japanese Breakfast
# with Nation of Language
& with Lala Lala